Here it is Rebecca, by Fanny Howe:
The Long Wrong
When the cold-blooded are proved right
— judgment secure — case complete
we will first see a tangle
of close-ups — gourd and gold
and apples still rotten
rugosa roses down to three petals only
and each holocaust will be an ant heap
All the little wrongs will come into focus
But who will be glad about this?
Even the bigamists
who thought they were splitting
each lie into fragments
too small to be located
might find their trail is following them
And the shortsighted whose faces
are a blur of glee
may begin to establish shapes
around pockets of light and air
in the thicket they are part of
but they won’t sense the force
that gathers those shapes
into actual consequence
until they themselves can’t go forward
And neither will the hesitant
experience their weakness
as an ability — I don’t think —
until it gathers into a body
of uncertainties that has influence
When the one big cruelty comes down on us
out of a seeming emptiness
it will be a helium packed with the force
of freely given evasions
so if some still believe
that the cold-blooded alone are responsible
for this power
how will they show that it came from elsewhere
Nothing has increased
Fanny Howe
On the Ground
Graywolf Press
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather
admirers.
Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: Gulag system
> Oh, Doug, can you give me the title? I went to google and kicked up
something
> like 17 titles for Mandel. Is the poem from _Life Sentence_ or something
else? I'd
> much like to read it. Oh and this reminds me, there was a poem by Fanny
Howe
> on Poetry Daily www.poems.com about two days ago that was very good. I
> meant to mention it on the list for it's a very evocative political poem,
though
> it's probably in the archives now, and can be found easily with a search
by
> author name.
>
> Best,
>
> Rebecca
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:05:53 -0700
> >From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Re: Gulag system
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >Glad you liked it, Rebecca.
> >
> >It's from a book of poems very personal, & working in an eerie way to
> >connect the speaker's jealousy to larger political concerns, or
> >vice-versa. Very powerful in places.
> >
> >Doug
> >On 25-Jan-05, at 9:39 AM, Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks much for this poem, Doug, I like it very much, especially the
> >> way it sort
> >> of breaks in the middle, here
> >>
> >>> if it is love that fingers in the mind
> >>> wake with a touch
> >>> curious
> >>> I remember only what was lost
> >>>
> >>> plotting my own purges and despairs
> >>
> >> as if breaking, interrupted by feeling, into some deep questioning of
> >> oneself,
> >> that troubling and being troubled, where these losses and lists
> >> intersect, so
> >> many thanks,
> >>
> >> Rebecca
> >> ---- Original message ----
> >>> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 08:58:50 -0700
> >>> From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> >>> Subject: Re: Gulag system
> >>> To: [log in to unmask]
> >>>
> >>> Some of the enws has been out there.
> >>>
> >>> I'm reminded of a poem by Canadian writer, Eli Mandel:
> >>>
> >>> Beware the Sick Lion
> >>>
> >>> They say Stalin at night
> >>> sleepless in the suburbs of Moscow
> >>> drew up long lists of enemies
> >>>
> >>> think of that dreadful paper
> >>>
> >>> to be sentenced by the pen
> >>> of an insomniac sleep-writing
> >>>
> >>> new stars wheel over Spain
> >>> bulldozers cut roads through groves
> >>> in Africa moors rule who once ruled Spain
> >>>
> >>> sleepless I pace before barred windows
> >>> fake-andalusian arches and toward sea
> >>> a Parador only cuts lines against the dark
> >>> where dark Greeks and Phoenicians sailed
> >>>
> >>> if it is love that fingers in the mind
> >>> wake with a touch
> >>> curious
> >>> I remember only what was lost
> >>>
> >>> plotting my own purges and despairs
> >>>
> >>> & as a poet, connecting it to questioning himself...
> >>>
> >>> This has been a very interesting conversation. And I too was grateful
> >>> to get the url for the Ash article.
> >>>
> >>> Doug
> >>> Douglas Barbour
> >>> Department of English
> >>> University of Alberta
> >>> Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
> >>> (780) 436 3320
> >>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
> >>>
> >>> The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
> >>> He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
> >>>
> >>> and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
> >>>
> >>> Diana Hartog
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >Douglas Barbour
> >Department of English
> >University of Alberta
> >Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
> >(780) 436 3320
> >http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
> >
> >The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
> >He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
> >
> >and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
> >
> > Diana Hartog
>
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